Bike-borne firefighters will douse infernos in bylanes of Bangalore

The fire department has gone modern with the induction of a fleet of motorcycle mounted fire-fighting equipment that can penetrate small lanes of the city.

“Designs have been chalked out to create customised fire tenders smaller in size but with the same teeth that the larger vehicles have. But the best way is to give more leeway to the fire tenders in the city, especially in the residential and business areas where large number of people and high-value properties are at stake,” said director general of police (fire and emergency services), Dr DV Guruprasad.

He said, “In the future, fire fighting in difficult terrains will follow new methods. Modern fire tankers or fire tenders will be put in place to douse fires.”

The recent fire at Avenue Road in Bangalore was an eye-opener. “The Avenue Road fire could have been worse had not the fire department been so effective and quick. These are the old parts of the city and buildings are located so close to each other. There is not much to be done except to give the fire-fighting force cutting-edge fire tankers to penetrate the inaccessible areas with the help of modern fire fighting equipment,” he said.

“The fire department has taken up fire audits of 30 multi-storey buildings in the state and most of them did not have standard fire fighting equipment. Carlton Towers in Indiranagar was one of them. There are similar buildings prone to fire hazards in Mangalore, Hubli, Mysore, Belgaum, and other tier II cities," he said.